Salt, damp off the Siagne and months of closure
On the marina quays and along the seafront, cylinders take in air loaded with salt. The barrel silts up, the pins pit, and a key you used to slide in without thinking suddenly has to be searched for. The symptom is slow and almost always ignored until the day the key stops turning altogether. On a door facing due west towards the Estérel, the effect shows within two or three seasons.
Homes shut for months put two effects together: the mechanism oxidises while the leaf moves with the damp rising off the Siagne and the low ground of the plain. On reopening, the bolt no longer meets the keep square on. People force it, and the linkage takes the strain.
After heavy rain, garage doors and ground-floor entrances near the Riou de l'Argentière come back with clogged tracks and locks that have taken water. A submerged mechanism cannot simply be rinsed out: it is stripped and dried, and replaced once corrosion has set in.
Adjust the door before blaming the lock
A door that has to be lifted to lock does not necessarily have a faulty lock. On the villas at Capitou and the houses of Les Termes, timber joinery and 1970s door sets have moved: hinges dropped, a keep two millimetres out, and the multipoint binds on every turn of the key. Adjusting a keep or a hinge often settles what looked like a lock due for replacement.
The same reasoning applies to a sliding gate on an estate: a track packed with pine needles and the red earth of the Estérel, a roller out of true, a gate lock that no longer meets its keep. Replacing the part without correcting the alignment simply wears out a new part within one season.
Two things to avoid in the meantime: do not flood the barrel with general-purpose penetrating spray, which leaves a greasy film that collects dust, and do not take the faceplate off a cased multipoint whose linkage is under tension. A dry lubricant and an on-site diagnosis cost less than a twisted mechanism. And never insist on a key that resists: it snaps clean inside the barrel.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our locksmith repairs page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Mandelieu-la-Napoule.